MY LIFE - SEPTEMBER

Saturday, September 23, 2000

I'm still sick, but I guess I'll give it a try on updating this site. It won't be easy though simply because my head is foggy at this point in time and I'm talking to people online at this point. I'm no master at doing two things at once, but what the hell. I'm sick and I could care less about what comes out of my mouth at this point in time. Besides, if I cared, I'd be doing something else, probably something thoughtful.

But anyway, I'm about as dead broke as you can get without being dead. I'll have $2 to try and make it through the rest of the week, but I'll just have to tough it out. I work 45 hours next week so I should be able to make up ground pretty quickly, but we'll see what happens. I'm just trying to survive what should be the roughest stretch since buying my car, the stretch where I have to pay for car insurance and a regular payment on my car. I've made it so far and I don't intend to fail now. It just wouldn't help my cause out a bit right now.

Bills are a part of life and I guess I should get used to them. I just don't want to be someone who's paying off bills from my college years when I'm in my thirties. I don't want to carry debt, but I'm finding that's harder to realize that it may seem. It seems more plausible to try and minimize debt and work it down slowly than to avoid debt at all. But by the time I finish school, in like the next ten years, I'll probably have accumulated a lot more debt from student loans.

But that's life in this crazy world. What are you going to do? I just have to keep on moving along and hope that things work out for the best.

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As adventurous as my life has been, nothing could've prepared me for what we got in the mail today. It was a letter from my dad, and although I didn't read it (I was asked to but declined), I was informed that about half of it was normal, the other half was just strange, and it came with a tooth or something like that. Yeah, that's just what I wanted to get in the mail. A tooth. Is that supposed to be some sort of momento or something? If it is, it's very strange and actually might make sense since it does come from my dad.

In all honesty, I hope that he gets better with this session in rehab. But we'll have to wait and see what happens with this and hope for the best. I want nothing more than for him to just get things straightened out.

I don't know if that will happen.

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I still remember when I was a junior in high school, there was this kid who'd ask you if you drank alcohol, and if you answered no, he'd ask you what you did for fun. I don't think it occurs to those who drink that you don't have to get drunk to have fun. It's a strange concept, but a true one. I don't care for drinking all that much, especially beer, but I was offered like a wine cooler or something like that, I wouldn't refuse. But I don't have an appetite for drinking like a lot of people my age.

I'm not going to preach on drinking though. You all know what can happen when you drink and you make the decision on your own. I'm not going to tell you not to drink, nor am I going to encourage it either. It's your choice. You can drink responsibly or be stupid about it. I'm not going to judge you on that one. You have your way of having fun and I have mine. You and I know the consequences, so that would be a waste of time for all of us.

I just want people to try and be more careful. If you're going to get drunk, don't drive. I've seen too many lives cut short because someone was driving drunk. It's a tragic mistake that will change a lot of lives very quickly. Drinking to get drunk just doesn't make sense to me though. Sure, you might feel great at the time, but god knows what you might be doing during the process. How many stories have we heard about people having sex with unknown people and not knowing what they were getting into. How many people have been hurt because of drunks getting to rowdy.

And how many deaths. Social drinking is one thing, but drinking to get drunk is a different ballgame. It just doesn't make sense to me. Too many otherwise good lives are getting destroyed over this. It saddens me, and not just because my dad was an alcoholic.

I wish I could explain just how I feel right now, but it's hard to describe. Especially since Paul Kirchner's death in the Flats last month. 20 years old, drunk at 2:30 in the morning, and attempting to urinate in the river when he fell in and drowned. His parents get medicine where I work. I wonder what they think about what's happened, how they stand on the safety issues involved.

I wonder how they're managing to keep it all together.

I didn't know Paul that well. I worked with him maybe one day before he quit. I can't really judge him that well, and I don't want to anyway. I'm writing this with a heavy heart because I don't really know what to say. I don't want to offend his parents, who seem so nice, nor do I want to offend his friends, one of whom happens to be my cousin, who I care about a lot.

But I have to wonder, what was he doing drinking in the flats? What's the urge behind this? Why risk a long life for such fleeting moments?

I guess I'll never know. Maybe it's better that way.

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Tribe Watch 2000

Cleveland Indians, 11
Kansas City Royals, 1

Summary

The Indians scored at least one run in the first six innings, including a four run fourth inning, while Bartolo Colon threw seven shutout innings to lead the Tribe to a win over the Royals in a wet and dreary game in Kansas City. Robbie Alomar was 4-4 while driving in key runs and Manny Ramirez hit his 33rd home run of the season to power the offense, which made up for last night's dismal showing. Meanwhile, Colon wasn't nearly as dominating, but just as effective in allowing just three hits and two walks while striking out nine in his seven innings.

Colon has now thrown 17 and 1/3 scoreless innings over his last two plus starts....Ramirez's home run was just the second for the Tribe in its last seven games going back to the Boston series. Tomorrow Charles Nagy goes for the Tribe as they try to go 8-4 on this ten day trip.

Record

84-69